How Can I Know God?
As humans we crave intimacy. Our deepest desires are often to know and be known. How do we find intimacy with God?
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1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice[b] goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens, God has pitched a tent for the sun.
5 It is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.
6 It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is deprived of its warmth.7 The law of the Lord is perfect,
refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
making wise the simple.
8 The precepts of the Lord are right,
giving joy to the heart.
The commands of the Lord are radiant,
giving light to the eyes.
9 The fear of the Lord is pure,
enduring forever.
The decrees of the Lord are firm,
and all of them are righteous.10 They are more precious than gold,
than much pure gold;
they are sweeter than honey,
than honey from the honeycomb.11 By them your servant is warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.
12 But who can discern their own errors?
Forgive my hidden faults.
13 Keep your servant also from willful sins;
may they not rule over me.
Then I will be blameless,
innocent of great transgression.14 May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart
be pleasing in your sight,
Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer.
What is Intimacy?
Knowledge plays a crucial role in intimacy. To be intimate means that you know someone and are fully known back by them. It's impossible to have intimacy between two people without knowing each other. It's one thing to know about someone, but it's completely different to really know someone.
Take marriage, for example. When you start seriously dating someone or get engaged, you can read books about marriage. You can take classes on it with other couples. You can receive the best pre-marital counseling possible. But you are just learning about marriage until you say "I do" and began life with your spouse. That's when you really know marriage.
My wife and I recently learned the same lesson with parenting our first foster child. In our certification process to become foster parents, we took many classes and tests on parenting. We passed home studies and read books. But until they called and told us there was a baby boy in need of a placement, we only knew about parenting. But now we know our foster child, and as we know him, we know what it means to be parents.
The Anglican pastor and theologian J.I. Packer first presented this difference between knowing about vs. knowing in his famous book Knowing God. He shared that we can fail to find intimacy with God because we often know things about God without seeking to know and be known by God Himself. We pursue knowledge for the sake of knowledge as we read, study, and do Christian things, but we entirely miss the relationship and therefore miss the intimacy we desire.
How do we not just know about God but know God?
Christ-follower
I believe that Psalm 19 gives us an answer to this question today. If you're reading this and consider yourself a Christ-follower, knowing God and having intimacy with Him is likely one of your greatest desires. It's an incredible thought that the God of the universe, the creator and sustainer of everything on this planet and everything throughout history, could at the same time personally know me in a relationship. Packer says it's a "relationship to thrill the heart."
Non-Christ-Followers
If you are reading this and are not a Christ-follower, you may not even believe there is a God to know; I don't want you to check out. Because I believe that this psalm has something specifically to say to you about who God is and why knowing him personally is excellent news.
1) Finding Beauty in Creation
"The heavens declare the glory of God,
and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech,
and night to night reveals knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words,
whose voice is not heard.
Their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
In them, he has set a tent for the sun,
which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber,
and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy.
Its rising is from the end of the heavens,
and its circuit to the end of them,
and there is nothing hidden from its heat." (Psalms 19:1-6)
This psalm begins by painting this poetic picture of creation. This is Hebrew poetry at its best. You can see the personification of nature, the metaphors of the sun. David declares that everything we see in nature, the sky, the sun and daylight, the stars and night's darkness, tells us something. They are declaring God's glory, His handiwork, and revealing knowledge about God.
There is no chance or accident when we see these things, but a purposeful creator that made our world. Pastor Tim Keller says that this psalm is showing us that this world is "nonverbal communication that there is a God, that the world is not an accidental collection of molecules but the meaningful work of an artist's hands."
These verses echo the creation story found at the very beginning of the Bible. In Genesis 1, we see that God created the heavens and the earth, but He creates by speaking.
His Word goes out, and then there are day and night.
His Word goes out, and there are seas and dry land.
His Word goes out, plants, animals, and, as His crowning creation, humanity, appears.
His Word creates, declares, and reveals Himself.
As Christ-followers, nature's beauty should fill us with wonder and joy. It isn't something to ignore moving throughout our days, nor is it something that we should exploit and destroy. Instead, nature is one of the ways that we can all be pointed toward God. Paul teaches in Romans 1 that all people have some knowledge about God through creation. We have some knowledge that there is more to this world than what we can see because of the beauty of creation.
Christ-followers throughout the ages have seen this and used creation as a reason to believe in a god. For example, many have looked at existence itself, knowing that nothing in science occurs without a cause, and recognize that something must have started this chain. Others have seen the fine-tuned design of everything in creation, how it's like dials have been set perfectly suitable for life to exist.
Or maybe, it's just the fact that beauty exists. If you don't consider yourself a Christ-follower, consider that there is a world around you that is singing and declaring the truth to you about meaning, purpose, love, and truth; That there is a God to know.
2) Finding Truth in Scripture
"The law of the Lord is perfect,
reviving the soul;
the testimony of the Lord is sure,
making wise the simple;
the precepts of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart;
the commandment of the Lord is pure,
enlightening the eyes;
the fear of the Lord is clean,
enduring forever;
the rules of the Lord are true,
and righteous altogether.
More to be desired are they than gold,
even much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey
and drippings of the honeycomb." (Psalms 19:7-10)
In these verses, we see David praising the truths found in the Bible and truths explicitly found about the personal God of the Bible. In the Hebrew, his language even changes. He generally refers to God in verse 1, but now he uses God's personal, covenantal name seven times. He uses the name to communicate that this is a God that wants to know and be known. To declare that there is a God to not just know about, but to really know.
David uses different words for Scripture: law, testimony, precepts, commandment, fear, rules. He does this to describe various aspects of the Word. It shows us God's revealed will, His truthfulness, His precision, His judicial decisions. These attributes are described in a way that honors and glorifies Him: they are perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, and true.
He ends in verse 10 by showing its value: It is something to delight in. It's more desirable than the best riches and gives more pleasure than the best taste.
As Christ-followers, we don't believe that we are left in the dark, wondering who God is or what He is like. We don't have to settle for nonverbal communication. Instead, we have a God that speaks to us through Scripture. As He does, our eyes are enlightened to see Him in all of His glory.
In Scripture, we have the verbal communication needed to know God. They are God's words, about Himself, given to us. As we read them, we find that these words have a way to revive our souls, as this psalm says. To be intimate means that you know someone, and in Scripture, we have God presenting Himself to us, desiring to be known.
3) Finding Grace in our Flaws
"Moreover, by them is your servant warned;
in keeping them, there is great reward.
Who can discern his errors?
Declare me innocent from hidden faults.
Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins;
let them not have dominion over me!
Then I shall be blameless
and innocent of great transgression." (Psalms 19:11-13)
In this section, David reflects on his known and unknown failures. He asks to be kept from presumptuous sins in verse 13; his actions are in complete disregard for God's Word. But he also asks to be declared innocent from the hidden faults, the things not remembered or done without realizing.
Being known and growing in intimacy means that we are known to our deepest core. It's in a relationship with someone so closely that there is no mask-wearing, no performance, no hiding. And as people that, like David, fall painfully short repeatedly, we see this and therefore fear intimacy.
Think of your closest relationships. Deeply knowing each other in marriage or your family has so much beauty, but it also means that my wife knows how I'll just leave any and every cabinet wide open. Likewise, really knowing my foster child has so much joy but also means that I am more acutely aware of my imperfections as a dad.
Scripture does two things for us.
It shows us the ideal to aim for: the glory of God, His truthfulness, His perfection, His holiness, His steadfast love, His justice.
It also functions as a mirror to our souls. It shows us how we fall short of that: our sin, our shortcomings, our failures, our shame, and our guilt.
Again, going back to Romans 1 and Paul's argument, this aspect of morality is clear to all of us. We know that there is a form of right and wrong, good and evil. Yet we suppress that knowledge, fearing intimacy, fearing to be known by a God that is good.
Are we stuck, though? David says no.
4) Finding the Word that Became Flesh
"Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
be acceptable in your sight,
O Lord, my rock and my redeemer." (Psalms 19:14)
David ends this psalm by praying that his words and meditations would be acceptable in God's sight. This language of being acceptable in God's sight is intentional and is used in the Old Testament repeatedly to refer to sacrifices.
For example, consider Noah's sacrifice in Genesis 8 after leaving the ark or the priests' sacrifices in the Tabernacle and Temple. In the Old Testament, sacrifices were seen acceptable in God's sight when they were pure, without blemish or error. They were how God could be known.
But wait, we have just seen in verses 10-13 that the words of David's mouth and the meditation of David's heart are not that. He's acknowledged that he has failed to live up to God's perfect standard in known and unknown ways. So how can his words and meditations be acceptable and thus be known by God? Furthermore, how can our words and our meditations be acceptable and known by God?
How Can We Know God?
We know God by knowing His Word. Look what the New Testament has to say about that.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was at the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth." (John 1:1-5, 14)
We can really know God by knowing the Word; Word that became flesh in the person of Jesus Christ.
Look at Jesus through this passage, John 1:1-5:
Verses 2-3 show us that He was the one at the beginning that made all the things in creation and nature that are proclaimed in Psalm 19:1-6.
Verses 4-5 show us that He is the one that is the true light and life found in Scripture that is proclaimed in Psalm 19:7-13, even though we remain in darkness.
This is the good news: We know God by knowing His Word, and in the person of Jesus, we find out that the Word became flesh to be known. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us in the person of Jesus, and in the person of Jesus, we see the glory of God, full of grace and truth.
Look what we can learn about God through Jesus' life:
He was the mighty king of creation.
He called storms to cease and the dead to rise, yet at the same time humble enough to dine with the outcasts of society.
He never sacrifices or compromises on justice.
He told people the complete truth about their need, but never on mercy and grace, instead by showing people the absolute truth about their love.
He was the one that was perfect, sure, right, pure, clean, and true.
Yet in this perfection, Jesus Christ became the embodiment of verse 14: On the cross, He became the perfect acceptable sacrifice in God's sight for us. Because He is our redeemer, His sacrifice becomes credited and given to us as our sacrifice. Because Christ's sacrifice was accepted in God's sight, we can have confidence that we will never be rejected.
The Door to Intimacy with God
We constantly fail and fall short of God's perfect Word. Like David, we do in known and unknown ways. As a result, we're farther from God than we want to admit, or may recognize.
But Jesus looks at us, full of truth and grace as John 1 teaches, and doesn't shun us or tell us to hide. Nor does He instruct us to clean ourselves up if we ever want to be known. Instead, He sees us for who we are and loves us more than we could ever imagine, and therefore provides the door to intimacy with God.
In Christ, we are promised that as we turn away from our sins and turn in faith in Jesus, our old selves die, and a new creation is born, one that, through the Holy Spirit, is literally Christ within us. The gospel message becomes the most authentic reality of your life, your truest self, and as it does, you find yourself experiencing the intimacy of knowing and being known by God.
When this is our truest reality, this now changes how we look at not just Psalm 19 but all of our efforts and intentionality with interacting with God's Word. In Luke 24:27, on the road to Emmaus, the resurrected Jesus teaches the two men how, "beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself."
That means that Jesus, the true Word, full of mercy and grace, is the point and purpose of all Scripture. Therefore, when we read, because the Holy Spirit dwells within us, we can understand and find Him in these words.
But the beauty of this is that we are finding someone in these pages that already knows and loves us to the uttermost. So when we approach our time in Scripture, we don't have to settle for knowing about God from a distance or approaching it like our efforts are needed to establish a relationship.
How can you find God in your Bible reading?
Beginners:
For some readers, the Bible might seem intimidating or overwhelming. Maybe your life has been a history of starting and stopping plans. Jesus Christ, full of grace and truth, invites you to know and love Him greater through His Word, and you can start new tomorrow.
Don’t be afraid to start slow.
Read one chapter at a time.
Don’t force yourself to read every day.
Start with one of the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John).
Read it with someone you know.
Regular Readers
For others, though, you might be reading regularly already but feel like something is missing. Maybe you're drifting into this area where you're learning but missing intimacy. I would encourage you to recover the discipline of meditation mentioned in this psalm.
Bible Meditation is pausing to think deeply on the truths that you read. It isn't like other forms of meditations, where you focus on nothing. Instead, it's focusing intently on one verse, one word, or one thought from what you read. You can memorize it, journal about it, or pray about it.
As you do this, you'll find that like a tea bag into a hot cup of water; it will permeate into you and create intimacy. You will shift your focus from knowing more about Him to going deeper in knowing Him.
Whether you are a new Bible reader or an expert that's been reading it your whole life, the promise that we hold in these Scriptures is that God hasn't just spoken to us nonverbally in His creation but verbally in His Word and personally through His Son. We know God by knowing His Word. We find that we are fully known and loved in the Word.
TL;DR
Knowledge plays a crucial role in intimacy. To be intimate means that you know someone and are fully known back by them.
We can know God by discovering the beauty in nature and the arts.
We can know God by reading truth in Scripture.
We can know God by accepting His grace for our flaws.
We can know God by knowing His Word.
For beginners wanting to know God’s Word, start slow and with the Gospels.
For regular Bible readers, wanting to know God’s Word deeper, try Bible mediation.
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About Christ Church Memphis
Christ Church Memphis is church in East Memphis, Tennessee. For more than 65 years, Christ Church has served the Memphis community. Every weekend, there are multiple worship opportunities including traditional, contemporary and blended services.
